Not to Yield
by isaytoodlepip
Summary: In Harry's 7th year, Remus returns to teach DADA. During an in-class exercise in trust, everyone is surprised to learn about the past and character of Remus J. Lupin, even himself. RL/SB Slash.


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A/N: This is a slash piece featuring RL/SB pairing, so be warned. Also, this takes place in Harry's 7th year, when Remus returns as DADA professor. 

"I'm sorry for the heat of the classroom," Remus Lupin began, smiling apologetically at the children that were now quite grown up and ready to be told so. "There's a brood of water demons in the furnace behind you, if you care to look." This was the last Defense Against the Dark Arts class for this group of Seventh Years. It was a week before end of term and while all of his other years' last classes were spent in helping the students cram for their end of the year exams, the Seventh Years knew just about all they were going to know for the dreaded NEWTs. Suffice it to say, there was nothing more that needed to be said, except...

"I had thought of canceling class today," Remus continued, smiling at the hope blooming in his students' eyes, "but I've decided on a decent way of passing the time. But first, feel free to take off your school robes, as long as you have something decent under them," Remus smiled, dashing the grins of some of the young men in the class. "Since this isn't a formal lecture, you might as well be comfortable." He paused to allow for contented sighs as all of the Gryffindors and most of the Slytherins heeded his advice. Once upon a time, DADA classes were restricted to one house and year per class, but the War had thinned out their numbers so much that even now he rarely had more than a dozen pupils at a time.

"I wish I could cast a cooling spell in here, but I need those demons for the Fifth Years' exam," Remus went on, shedding his own robe, pausing to make brief eye contact with his class, and proceeded to roll up his sleeves and undo the top buttons of his collar. He heard a few gasps and he saw more than a few questions on their faces, but they all kept silent, for now. "I wish there was something I could say that would guarantee you a safe passage in this life. I wish that I could promise you that you are all ready for this war, this fight. But you know I can't. Last night, I was sitting at my desk, trying to come up with something to say to you, on your last day in my class. Somehow, 'Good luck and don't get yourself killed,' didn't seem to cut it. The only other thing I could think of, the only thing that you really need that I can never give to you, is trust. Trust in yourself, your friends, your colleagues. Everyone in this room knows what the lack of trust did to the people I care about. And what it did to me. So, for our last class, I want to put aside all of the curses and monsters and things that go bump in the night, and focus on the human component in this war. Ask me anything. Ask each other anything. Two hours won't build up a lasting relationship, but believe me, it's something to go on."

And not one person spoke. Remus hadn't expected them to react with anything other than reservation and disbelief. Why should they? Hadn't he taught them not to reveal too much? Not to put too much faith where it was not deserved? Hadn't he taught them that the most dangerous threat to them was each other? Apparently, they had learned the lesson well. Now, he needed to pull at that thread, help their ball of self-defense come a bit undone, if only to keep them from turning out like…well, like Severus.

"You want us to just ask you anything?" Hermione Granger asked. 'Trust her to help me out,' Remus thought, beaming at her with what he knew was an embarrassing level of gratitude.

"Anything," he reaffirmed. "Though I reserve the right not to answer."

"If you don't, do we get to dare you?" grinned Dean Thomas. Remus swallowed an impulse to praise the boy for daring to look happy again, only weeks after his best friend Seamus had died.

"No, I don't think so," Remus laughed. "Some of you would have me kissing a fire demon, or something much worse," he answered, not being able to keep his eyes drifting over to Draco Malfoy, who, if the reports could be believed, had managed to avoid being recruited by Voldemort. The same could not be said for his old henchmen, who had died the summer before in an ill-planned Ministry raid.

"Where did you get the tattoos?" Draco asked. Remus should have known that boy would be the first to conjure up the nerve.

"I did these myself," Remus answered, gesturing to the scene that encompassed his left forearm. There was a myriad of images, all swirled in half-madness, half-torment. Wolves, trees, Dementors, all stages of the moon, Celtic knots, women and men, people devouring, people being devoured. 

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Sometimes to mark an event. Sometimes just to keep my hands from doing something that would hurt a lot more than this," Remus answered, staring at the Dementor that hovered over his wrist. He could feel the unease in his students, but they had to know that this was real.

"Do they move?" Draco asked, the affected boredom in his voice threatening to abandon him to emotion.

"Only if I tell them to," Remus smiled, holding out his arm so they could see the limbs of the Whomping Willow thrash about.

"Oh my god!" Ron nearly squealed. "Snape just bloody winked at me!" That did it. Draco Malfoy broke down and laughed.

"Yes, Professor Snape here is particularly talented at disarming people," Remus smiled, looking fondly at the etching of Severus in the crook of his elbow. "Sadly, scowling has become expected and now he's rather pressed to find a facial expression that shocks anyone. Be glad you're not around to see what he does when the real Professor Snape is looking." His cheeks glowed warmly at the memory of the ink of the surly potions master doing a strip tease for his flesh and blood counterpart. Remus had had to endure Severus's contempt for the better part of a month. And the melodramatic claims from Sirius that he had gone blind.

"Why is he there at all?" Ron asked.

"Because he almost killed him, Weasley," Draco answered, not with any cruelty, only disbelief at Ron's continual ignorance of the obvious. 

"They're nice," Hermione entered, not wanting to waste any time with bickering. "I didn't know you could draw."

"I was a painter, before I came to teach here," Remus answered. "In the Muggle world."

"How did you become qualified to teach?" Draco asked.

"Before and during the first war, I traveled around the world, a free agent of sorts. For money I would hire out my services to capture or incapacitate dark creatures."

"What about those?" Harry asked, pointing to Remus' right arm. 

"Don't you want to ask each other questions?" Remus hinted. "After all, most of you won't have to deal with me again for awhile." Which meant that, barring the obvious exceptions, most of these students that were considering taking an active role in the war would not reach the level of security Remus currently held for quite some time, if ever.

"Right now, you're more fun," Hermione grinned.

"Fine, these are words," Remus answered.

"That's obvious," Draco scowled. It was true. His right forearm was covered in a black lilting script, blocks of words of different sizes and handwriting, some lines circling around him like a bracelet, more compressed into one area here, one area there, only separated by what looked like a mosaic. A stained glass window, right in his skin.

"They're quotes from novels. They're stanzas of poems. They're names. They're dates. They're diary entries. Some of them I did myself. Some of them are by friends or lovers. Some by strangers."

"What do they say?" Draco asked.

"Maybe I'll tell you all that later," Remus smiled politely. 

"Is that where you were bitten?" came a small voice from the back of the room. Pansy Parkinson didn't often speak in his class, and Remus remembered why. In her third year, he had allowed her to face down a boggart. He tried not to shatter when he was faced with what could have been himself farther on in the lunar cycle.

Remus lightly ran a finger over the scar on his neck that had been exposed when he had undone those few sheltering buttons. "It's one of the places," he answered. "The first one, the infecting one, is on my shoulder. And there's another on my side."

"Can we see?" she asked.

"Do you just want to see Professor Lupin without his shirt on?" Dean asked. 'Finally,' Remus thought, 'they turn on someone else.'

"No," Pansy scowled, but the blush in her cheeks threw her honesty into doubt.

Remus wanted to deny her request, but he also knew that this was something more _important_ than tattoos. At least, he hoped they realized that. He hoped they realized that he hated _anyone_ looking at his scars, even Sirius. Every time his mate ran his fingers over those scars, Remus wanted to scream at him, to snatch his hand away like he would a child's from an open flame. He wanted to shout at his lover, "What are you thinking? Don't you know this can kill you?" And he wanted to cry because he felt like he ought to be grateful that anyone would want to touch something so diseased. But he could never tell Sirius this, and he certainly would never tell his students this, so instead he calmly undid the rest of the buttons and removed his shirt. When he was satisfied that they had all had the chance to take in the scars, the tan, the light trail of hair, the softly defined muscles, he put his shirt back on with only a hint of embarrassment. "Can you please interrogate each other for a few minutes?" Remus asked, careful not to sound too desperate. He wasn't sure he succeeded, but they listened to him nonetheless.

"How many of you are going to fight?" Draco asked, addressing the four Gryffindors in the room. They all nodded their heads.

"Are you?" Ron asked. Pansy informed them that she would be working for the Gladrags Canadian division, but Draco nodded in affirmation.

"For which side?" Dean asked.

"For the right side," Draco answered. "So Potter, are you ready to die trying to kill the Dark Lord?"

Remus couldn't help but squeeze his eyes shut tightly as Harry answered yes. And as Ron and Hermione chimed in that they would die trying to save him. 

"Why?" Draco asked.

"Because he'd do the same for us," Ron answered.

"That's not a reason," Pansy pointed out.

"I think it's a perfectly valid reason," Remus suggested. He had had time to compose himself, to bring to center all of the things that he habitually hid from the daylight. Now those secrets were amassed somewhere in his chest and, he told himself, revealing any small part of himself would now only be a matter of breathing out ever so slowly. And when did breathing ever hurt? 

"But Potter would die for anyone," Malfoy answered, his eyebrows twisted, as if they were longing for the days when such a statement would have been accompanied by a sneer, a tone conveying a considerable amount of contempt for this martyr-in-waiting.

"And Ron and Hermione love him enough to see that quality in him as something admirable. Something worth saving," Remus answered.

"Well, what about you, Harry?" Dean asked.

"What?" Harry asked in turn, but Remus could tell from the tint of the young man's face that he knew what Dean was asking.

"Why are you willing to fight him?"

"Him being an evil bastard who murders innocent people and will continue to do so until we all give in and fall at his feet for mercy isn't reason enough for you?" Harry asked.

"No, it's more than enough," Dean answered.

"I think he wants to know if this is all for revenge," Pansy offered.

"What difference would it make?" Ron asked.

"It's a difference of morality, I think," Pansy snapped. "Big hero of the wizarding world. Bit hypocritical if he was motivated out of hatred and a need for vengeance, isn't it?"

"What do /you/ know about morality?" Dean challenged.

"At least enough to be immoral," Draco answered for her.

They were all silent for a few minutes, and Remus debated with himself over the prudence of just ending it all now and casting an all-encompassing memory charm. But something about the questions that were being asked demanded patience of him.

"Harry, are you going to amend your answer to Dean's question?" Remus asked.

"Do I have to? What difference does it make?" Harry asked.

"You don't have to. You don't have to say anything," Remus answered.

"Yeah, forget it Harry," Dean answered. "The reasons you gave were fine enough. I mean, I'm joining up because of Seamus, and I don't see anything wrong with that."

"Grief and guilt fade over time," Draco said. "I just hope all of you have something with a bit more permanence in you."

"How about a fundamental sense of right and wrong, or a disagreement of politics? Do you deem that permanent enough?" Hermione asked.

"No," Pansy answered. Draco scowled in her direction, but didn't contradict her.

"Hate?" Harry asked. Both of the Slytherins paused.

"Love?" Remus asked.

"That's just stupid," Pansy scowled, forgetting that she was speaking to what amounted to be her greatest fear. "How can love make you join a war?"

Harry just rolled his eyes at the question, but Hermione tried to suggest answers for Remus to choose from, politely giving him an out if he didn't want to disclose certain details of his private life to the students who were unaware of them. "Maybe he means a love for everything Voldemort is against? For the life that he would deny us?"

"Maybe he's Dumbledore's boy toy," Dean laughed, his eyes full of apology and mirth as he slid a glance towards Remus.

"Ughk," was Pansy's answer to that particular image.

"But you are retired from active duty, right?" Draco asked. Obviously the boy's father was well informed and had loose lips.

"I am restricted from field combat, yes," Remus answered.

"Why?" Dean asked. "Is it because…"

"I'm a werewolf? No," Remus answered.

"Were you wounded?" Pansy asked.

"In a sense. I've been deemed unfit for the battle field," Remus answered.

"Why don't you stop pestering Professor Lupin?" Hermione suggested. "You can ask me anything," she added quickly.

"Is it true that you were the one who sent Snape a Valentine this year?" Ron asked, even though he knew the answer.

"Yes," Hermione snarled, practically growling at Ron and Harry, who were scaring the fire demons with the volume of their laughs.

"Perhaps you should take another look at this tattoo," Remus teased, nodding towards the picture of Severus on his arm, who was presently ringing out his robes after being assaulted by Padfoot's drool.

"Well why are you going to fight in the war?" Harry asked Draco.

"Me? Oh, I'm doing it for revenge," Draco answered, look of boredom now firmly in place.

"So it's all right for you?" Ron asked.

"It's all right for anyone, Weasley, as long as they admit to it."

"Well, time's almost up," Remus announced. "Are there any more questions you want to ask me?"

"Can you read something off your arm?" Pansy asked.

Remus searched his forearm for something relatively harmless. "Here," he said, pointing to a spot half-way between wrist and elbow, "It says 'You absorb me in spite of myself'."

"Did you write that?" Ron asked.

"No, John Keats did."

"No, I meant-"

"Oh, Sirius Black did this one," Remus answered.

"Why does he say 'in spite of himself'?" Pansy asked, hiding her disappointment that another man was writing on the professor's body. She may be afraid of werewolves, but that didn't keep her from admiring the man's form.

"He doesn't. He would never say something like that," Remus answered. "It was something I used to say to him and he hated it. So he did this the old-fashioned way. Very painful," Remus admitted. Strangely, he felt no embarrassment. No shame even. And if any of his students wanted to ask more about his relationship with Sirius, they held back their curiosity.

"What else is there?" Harry asked, and for a moment Remus thought the young man was referring to the pain.

"Oh," Remus answered, realizing that the students closer to the front of the class were not-so-subtly craning their necks to look at his arm. He looked over the tattoos himself, even though he had no need of a reminder. Even the most trivial entries etched into his skin were committed to memory long ago. Like they were intrinsic. Like they were as simple as eye color (though Sirius would always claim that it was impossible to describe Remus's azure/steel/golden/jade/murex windows into the soul). "Here's one that's amusing in its stupidity. 'Re- don't forget to pick up eggs, Love You'." 

"Um…why?" Ron asked.

"I must admit I was slightly inebriated, which is obvious from my penmanship and spelling 'eggs' 'A-Y-G-S'," Remus answered.

"But why did you tattoo _that_ onto your arm?" Hermione asked. 

"I honestly don't know," Remus laughed. "Probably came from the same part of my brain that convinced me it was a good idea to write 'Severus Snape has a great ass,' here," he added, pointing to a small section of skin near his wrist. True as that statement might be, Remus had done it in a fit of rage after the Shrieking Shack incident as a payback against Sirius and now it was one in many regrets that he had concerning those two men.

"Ewwww," Dean shuddered, and Remus swore he could hear a soft sigh from Hermione.

"Well, our time is up I'm afraid," Remus announced, feeling an utter failure. He didn't quite know what he expected, but it had to be more than this. These students…they were completely unprepared for this Children's Crusade they were about to embark upon. They'd go out to the battlefield with some fancy curses, a fair bit of determination, a seemingly inexhaustible source of courage, but where would that get them? Maybe it would get them through the carnage, but then, where did all those things get him?

"Listen, I'm going to tell you something. It's not meant to frighten you or dissuade you from your plans to fight Voldemort. I know that some of you feel that you are locked into this battle, that you have been destined for it since birth. And I don't know, maybe that's true. But please, listen to me. I was bitten when I was five years old. A person doesn't live this long with a curse like mine without a certain amount of fortitude, physical and moral. But when I fought in my first _real_ battle, all of that strength was not enough to carry me through. I was retired from active duty after only one fight, and then I was committed into the psych ward of St. Mungo's for three months. I was unable to speak for the better part of a year. And on two occasions after particularly bad transformations, when I woke up covered in my own blood, I entered into a fugue state. The first time, I was found wandering the streets of London, naked, three days later. The second time, I was found in a Muggle drug hovel in Amsterdam. I am psychologically unfit for combat. I don't know…I don't know why I'm even telling you this. But listen to me, please know that…I don't know. Just remember that, if any of you EVER falls like I did, know that you have at least one person that will try his damnedest to help you up. And not just because I care about you or feel obligated to, but because I know the way."

And what could anyone say to that? Nothing, except a quiet thank you, and they all hurried out of the classroom, leaving Remus alone. Except he wasn't.

"Are you all right?" asked the soft, smoky voice.

"I'm fine. How long were you listening?"

"A while," Sirius answered, shutting the door behind him. "Are you sure you're ok? I can't believe you told them all that."

"I'm fine, Sirius. I feel good," Remus smiled. "Do you think it meant anything to them?"

"Yes. More than they'll ever be able to tell you," Sirius answered quietly, slipping his arms around his lover. They were silent in this state, breathing into each other's necks, Sirius smelling like grass and cloves, Remus like a sweet mixture of sweat and laundry detergent. Then Sirius pulled back to stare into Remus's sunlight-on-waves eyes. "You know that Keats quote on your arm? The 'you absorb me in spite of myself'?"

"Yes?"

"I never meant to hurt you with that," Sirius said.

"I know," Remus answered. "Neither did I."

"It's only that it made me so bloody frustrated to hear you say that," Sirius continued.

"I know," Remus repeated.

"But it's not about the 'in spite of myself' bit," Sirius said, unwrapping himself from Remus and instead gently rubbing his thumb over and over the offending ink.

"Really?" Remus asked, genuinely surprised, and extremely grateful that, after so many years, his lover could still surprise him.

"Really. I just didn't like the idea of you being absorbed by me."

"Am I really that bad?" Remus asked.

"No," Sirius sighed. "Stop trying to misunderstand me. It won't work," he pouted.

"Fine, explain, please," Remus smiled.

"It's just that I read something once and it always reminded me of you and the very idea that…" Sirius couldn't help himself, his words were coming faster and louder and finally Remus had to kiss him to absorb some of that passion.

"Now, what did you read?" Remus whispered against Sirius's lips. 

"I don't know," Sirius answered, breathless from his lover's intense heat. Or was that the fire demons?

"You don't know?" Remus asked, moving his hands to play with the hair curling out from behind Sirius's ears.

"I read it on your arm," Sirius clarified, pulling Remus's arm down so he could point to the passage that Remus had added to himself moments after the two had been reunited after Remus's stay in the hospital years before.

"Rilke?" Remus asked. Sirius just nodded, and Remus reread the elegy for his lover's sake.

"But we, when moved by deep feeling, evaporate; we

breathe ourselves out and away; from moment to moment

our emotion grows fainter, like a perfume. Though someone

may tell us:

'Yes, you've entered my bloodstream, the room, the whole

springtime

is filled with you…' – what does it matter? He can't contain 

us,

we vanish inside him and around him. And those who are

beautiful,

oh who can retain them?"

"Can't you see it?" Sirius asked, once Remus was finished.

"What? You're afraid that I would vanish inside of you?" Remus asked.

"No. I was afraid that you couldn't see that I couldn't possibly retain you," Sirius answered, pulling Remus tightly to him.

"Sirius…" Remus half-whimpered, knowing what his lover was going to say and, briefly, pitying him for the delusion.

"Remus, God, you are so beautiful," Sirius continued. 

"I'm not," Remus answered, still leaning into his lover, wishing they were in his rooms instead of in the classroom. He'd strip off his shirt for Sirius and show the man what he really was. And then he'd strip Sirius of _his_ clothes, to show him what beauty meant. And then he'd try to melt into it, the only thing he really needed in order to feel solid.

"You are," Sirius rejoined. Remus didn't have the heart to argue, that happy organ already full to bursting with the simple emotion and tortuous Love that he felt for Sirius. And suddenly, he felt drained of it all. He was empty of everything except a need to fall into a soft place and have a quiet cry. These moments were rushing in on him more and more with every goodbye he said. And Harry, poor Harry, the boy was leaving soon and all Remus could see, all he could see was a third 'POTTER' written in cold, gray, dead and permanent letters…

"Sirius, I need to go lie down," Remus whispered.

"Remus?" Sirius asked, the passion he had felt moments earlier shifting into tenderness and concern.

"I'm fine," Remus answered. But there was Sirius, always there, and how could he say that? "No, I'm not fine. I need to lie down. I need to…"

Before he could find the thoughts and words to finish that sentence, Remus found himself settled onto his bed, being tended to by Sirius.

"Where were you?" Sirius asked, noticing that Remus was moving once again.

"Did I go somewhere?" Remus asked.

"Yes. You must have left the country for a few hours," Sirius answered. "I hope you brought me back something. Something incredibly cheap and tasteless, at the very least. Maybe even neon."

"Hours?" Remus asked.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"Can you tell me what went wrong?" Sirius asked, slipping under the sheets and curling up against Remus's side.

"I don't know. It must have been too much, saying goodbye to that group of students. Confessing all that I did. And then you…"

"I?"

"Sirius, you know how hard this is for me," Remus sighed. "I wish I could make it go back to the way it was before, when I could let you love me and not feel like I was cheating you somehow. But then you go and say things like that, beautiful, touching, romantic, _loving_ things like that, and now they don't make me melt into your arms or even get so hard I need to take you right there and then because I'll break into two if I don't. Now, they make me crumble. Crumble into nothing and blow away like nothing. I'm so sorry, Sirius," Remus choked out, freely sobbing now. "I'm sorry that I can't let you love me like you want to. Painlessly. Something's wrong with me. Something's wrong with me and I can love you just like I have always done, I can love you more than ever and better than I ever thought was possible but I'm not enough for you. Me loving you is not enough for you because you're such a beautiful person that you need to be able to love someone back, and you're _hurting_ me Sirius. You're hurting me when you look at me like that and when you hold me like that and when you say I'm beautiful because…have you ever even looked at me? How can you _say_ that?"

"Remus, don't you trust me?" Sirius asked calmly, but Remus could feel the hurt radiating off his lover.

"Of course I trust you," he answered.

"But you can't believe me when I tell you that I think you're beautiful? You can't believe that I make love to you because I _do_ love you, that you're worthy of that love?"

"You aren't being rational about it," Remus answered.

"What's rational about love?" Sirius asked. "Personally, I think you're daft for putting up with me, but I don't shut down when you do. Probably because I'm so bloody grateful."

"I'm grateful!" Remus answered.

"No, you're hurt. Because you're protective of me and you think that I'm wasting myself on you?"

"You are."

"And if I feel the same about you, that I don't deserve you, but I feel grateful for having you anyway, doesn't that make me selfish?"

"You can't be selfish," Remus answered. 

"Now who's being irrational?" Sirius teased, before turning about and sucking one of Remus's earlobes into his mouth.

"Well, I can never think straight when you're in my senses," Remus whispered, shocked at himself for not moaning, or panting at the very least.

"Remus? Please? You need to tell me what's wrong," Sirius half-pleaded, burying his face against Remus's neck, and his lover could feel long eyelashes quivering there, an ever so slight humidity threatening to spill over into tears.

"I'm weak. I'm weak and because of that, those kids are going to go out and spill there blood for the cause _I_ failed," Remus answered.

"Shut up," Sirius growled, low and dangerous and directly into Remus's skin.

"Si-"

"No, shut the fuck up, Remus!" Sirius shouted now. "God, what the hell is _wrong_ with you?" 

"I'm-"

"Don't you fucking say you're weak, or I swear to _God_ Remus, I'm going to knock your bloody teeth in. I mean…Remus, if _you're_ weak, what the hell good am I? When are you going to forgive yourself for this? Wait, no, you don't need forgiveness. Because this wasn't even your fault."

"Whose fault is it?" Remus snapped. "Even though I was surrounded by nearly a hundred wizards and witches on that field, I can at least remember that none of them made me a coward."

"Jesus, you have no idea, do you?" Sirius sighed. "You don't remember a thing. Do you remember that we were only 19?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember where I was standing?"

"Yes, you were behind me," Remus answered.

"And James?"

"He was behind as well."

"And what do you think happened?"

"I _know_ what happened," Remus answered. "I got in one curse. I turned my head, saw Geoffrey go down. Something hemorrhagic. Blood everywhere, some got on James's face. I remember seeing it there and thinking that James was dead, even though he was still speaking. He was dead, and that's it. I froze. Shut down, woke up in the medic tent. I'm not sure what was said, but I remember being transferred to the hospital. And then I was half-asleep for a year. Until Harry was born, and I had to say hello," he concluded, small smile in honor of that larger-than-life miracle that was disguised as a pink, chubby baby with a shock of black hair and eyes like summer.

"And that's all you can remember from that battle?" Sirius asked, frightened already by what he would have to say.

"Yes."

"Don't you remember getting your Merlin 3rd class medal?"

"What?" Remus asked, more than bewildered.

"About two months after you were discharged? There was a big ceremony at the Ministry for those that had fallen in the Battle of Necian Field, the first major conflict in the war. And at the end, half a dozen medals were awarded to the heroes of that battle. Don't you remember?"

"You're making this up," Remus whispered. "Someone would have mentioned this to me, after all this time."

"If no one has, it's because you hate talking about that battle. Now, do you remember what you did to earn that medal?"

"I didn't do anything," Remus sighed. "I blacked out. I REMEMBER that I blacked out."

"Remus, you saved us all. The five of our unit, we were all hiding _behind_ you. You remember that. And when Geoff was killed, I remember you turning to us. You said that everything would be all right. And then you turned around and immobilized nineteen Death Eaters with one spell! I never saw anything like it, not even in all the years since. You immobilized them and then you kept going. You just kept walking through, stopping everyone in your path, and every time one of us were in trouble, you'd turn back and pull us through. You carried us all through for nearly an hour, and then a Death Eater named Simon O'Shea grabbed me. He had a wand pointed at my head but he was looking at you. And you just said that everything would be all right, and before I knew it, you had the bastard by the throat. You snapped his neck, Remus. And when he stopped moving and fell to the ground, you fell with him. You fell to your knees and held him to you like he was everything. And you just sat there, cradling him and crying and saying everything would be all right. You wouldn't let go of him. You wouldn't let go and you wouldn't move, and God, I'm so sorry Remus, but we left you there. We left you, in the middle of the battle. You could have been killed, but we kept moving. When it was over and the Death Eaters that were left had apparated away, James and I came back for you, but you had already been picked up by the medics. They told me that they had to stun you to get you to let go of O'Shea. And even after we woke you up, you didn't say anything for months. All James and I had to go on was the last thing you said to us. 'Everything will be all right'. And we had to believe it Remus, because you saved our lives."

Remus was silent for a long moment after Sirius stopped speaking, his mind tearing away in so many directions that he doubted it would ever be mended again. A hero? And a killer too. Why hadn't he been Kissed? Or put to death? Those were the only options available by law for a werewolf who killed a human, no matter what the circumstances. For a moment, the region of his brain that dealt with fantasies betrayed him. He thought about all of the wonderful moments he'd had since Sirius's return from Azkaban. He thought about nights wrapped around his lover, nights inside his lover, forever inside. Deliriously happy. When had he ever been so happy? It couldn't be real. He'd been Kissed, and this was all a dream. But no, the soulless don't dream. So he was dead. Burnt alive by silver, and now he was…in Heaven? No, he was a murderer. So hell. A hell where the most beautiful thing in the world is forever at your fingertips but never in your grasp. He'd often felt that way when making love to Sirius. And now he knew why.

"Remus, what are you thinking?" Sirius asked.

What wasn't he thinking? Remus was running through everything he believed about life, death, heaven and hell and everything in between. He was thinking about physics, about the nature of matter and time. He was thinking about biology, about pain receptors and dopamine. He was thinking about the lunar cycle. He was thinking that his mind had already proved itself susceptible to disassociation and fugue states. He was thinking that he was alive, if not so well.

"Why did I just break open like that?" he asked. It sounded like a scholarly inquiry, like it had no reflection on Remus Lupin the man. Was this how the question was meant to be asked?

"I don't know, Remus," Sirius answered, wrapping his arms around his lover once again. "Maybe…maybe you had conditioned yourself so thoroughly against violence, all those nights when you were worried senseless about hurting someone on the full moon, that you shut yourself down to protect yourself from hurting anyone else that day. I honestly don't know, Moony, but you're not broken anymore."

"Aren't I?" Remus asked.

"Why, because you worry about Harry and the rest going off to fight that monster? Don't you think all of us at the castle, and all of the parents in this whole world, are worried about the same exact thing?"

"But it's more than that, Padfoot. You know it's more than that."

Sirius didn't say anything. He just pulled Remus closer, breathing into his neck until the man shivered, and then he was inside him before the trembling had a chance to stop. And then there was no chance to come, only one long undulation, head to toe and back again, vibrations of throaty gasps, joints popping to remind them of every generous year spent learning the curves of free fall.

"God, Remus," Sirius gasped, closing his eyes so tight that he saw purple and green starbursts, "Remus, you are so beautiful."

And there was no pause. No lapse in time or freeze frame. Remus didn't feel a pang in his heart, didn't feel his muscles stiffen in protest. He only felt his heart. Bursting. Bursting into everything. The everything that Sirius was to him. What could he say? Thank you? But he could never say those words enough.

"You're beautiful too," he said. "You're beautiful and immense. And you make me feel infinite. I'm infinite because of you. Might not we retain each other?" And then they came, together, silently promising that this was how it would always be.

"Everything will be all right."

****

The End


End file.
